Alaska / Air France partnership ending 4/30/18

Alaska Airlines has announced the coming end of their partnership with Air France / KLM as of April 30, 2018. This will mark the end of both earning and redeeming miles both ways.

This is disappointing news. While there was not terribly good award availability on Air France and KLM, this will cut out a number of European destinations from Mileage Plan awards. Further, while the earning rates on paid premium cabin fares with British Airways are a lot more enticing than those with Air France, this marks the fourth partnership to suffer a major change this year alone (with the end of earning Alaska miles on most domestic American Airlines flights, the end of the partnership with Delta, and the end of the partnership with Aeromexico).

Dates to mark

If you have travel booked or in mind with Air France, here are some dates to keep in mind:

As shown above, you will continue to earn miles on all (eligible) tickets purchased and ticketed through December 5, 2017. If you purchase a ticket from today onward, you will earn miles on tickets for travel through April 30, 2018 — but you will not earn miles on travel after that.

On the redemption side, you can redeem Alaska miles through April 30, 2018 for award bookings on Air France. You should still be able to redeem through the end of the schedule as I read the info.

Bottom line

This wasn’t necessarily the most rewarding partnership from any viewpoint, but it’s unfortunate to see Alaska lose any partners. They certainly have more valuable partnerships than this one, but let’s hope they are able to maintain them and/or build new ones with the expansion through the Virgin America merger.

H/T: One Mile at a Time

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